AID TO MALTA

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 110, 12 May 1942, Page 5

AID TO MALTA

MORE PLANES ARRIVE

101 NAZI VICTIMS IN

THREE DAYS

LONDON, May 11. R.A.F. reinforcements which have been flown to Malta took part in the fierce weekend battlesIt is now known that in the last 72 hours 101 Axis aircraft have been destroyed or damaged over the island. Thirty-one have been destroyed for certain, 29 probably destroyed, and 41 damaged. General Sir Wiljiam Dobbie, former Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Malta, visited the Prime Minister today and gave him an account of the Island fortress's heroic defence during two stormy years. In iritei'views afterwards, he spoke with pride of the indomitable spirit of the people of Malta. The Germans, he said, had said that they would rub the island out, but there were fewer signs of that than ever before. The island's fighters and guns were driving the enemiy higher and higher. Defending aircraft had taken a tremendous toll in attacks on enemy communications with Libya, and had contributed greatly towards weakening the Axis resources there. Speaking of ihe secret of Malta's strength, Sir William said that the people's love of the British Empire was intense and that they were extremely religious. Every street, had been dam--1 aged, and Malta's whole life had been turned -upside down, but the people did not complain. Malta had saved Christendom once before, and they would like to think that she was doing her bit in saving it again. . . Malta resisted the Turks in 1565, when a siege of the island, conducted' by Mustapha Pasha, was successfully opposed by the Knights of St. John.